As an avid bicyclist for more than 50 years and a bicycle store owner for half that time, I’ve heard or experienced many cycling stories of frustration, injury, and fear. Fortunately I’ve been able to balance these disturbing tales with reassuring stories of cycling triumphs and years of blissful cycling moments.

Summing up all my years of pedaling through life is the reality that bicycling is fun! When it’s not fun, it is because of inadequate information. To bridge this information gap, I have spent the last few years collecting information that will be useful to everyone who wants to enjoy bicycling as a holistic approach to living well. With customers and friends, I have questioned, listened, observed, experienced, and researched, writing this book as my contribution to helping more cyclists experience fun, fitness, and freedom.

Bicycling Bliss is written for people who want to improve their health and fitness through cycling. It will guide you in developing a healthful riding technique, in improving your riding performance and pleasure, and in establishing a rewarding program of integrated wellness based on cycling. This book acknowledges that riders and potential riders are at all levels of fitness and are as diverse as a cross-section of the general population. Whether you are large or small, lean or obese, strong or frail, recovering from sickness or injury, old or young, or differently-abled, you can develop a personal riding style that meets your individual needs.

Some of you are experienced riders who have never received instruction, some of you are beginners, and some of you probably fall somewhere in-between those categories. There are no prerequisites for this book - Bicycling Bliss is designed to provide insights to cyclists of all levels. My own experience is that no matter how satisfactory my current cycling performance is, I can always refine my technique and discover new ways to increase my riding pleasure. I’m certain that you will find that the same is true for you.

This book is organized for easy and frequent reference. I hope you will refer to the text often as you practice new riding techniques and conditioning exercises. Illustrations of human anatomy, bicycle components, and a glossary of terms will make new vocabulary understandable. Food pyramids, recipes, and recommended readings encourage you to explore new eating habits and further your knowledge from specialists in subjects introduced in Bicycling Bliss.

How to use Bicycling Bliss

The chapters are arranged to progressively build a solid understanding of how to optimize your cycling performance through proper use of your body and by nurturing yourself as an athlete. I hope you will read from cover to cover. However, I know many of us open a book and go directly to the part that interests us most or search for a solution to a specific problem. If this is your approach, make use of the cross references so you will gain a complete picture on each issue. If you are a novice, select the most helpful suggestions and work them through step by step. Avoid becoming overwhelmed by trying to improve several aspects of cycling at once.

The biomechanics of your body and the mechanical variables of your bicycle are interrelated. During optimum performance, you and your bicycle function as one unit. For simplicity, I discuss each part of your body and your bike separately. But remember that all body parts are interrelated in complex ways, and that each aspect of your bike setup influences other performance factors.

Modifying your riding style and modifying your bike are interdependent. When you are experimenting with a new riding technique, your bike may hinder you from experiencing the full benefits. Similarly, it is possible to modify your bike setup but benefit only partially because you cling to your old riding style. A sore neck and upper back may lead you to install a new stem on your bike to bring the handlebars closer to your shoulders. But after making this modification, you most likely will continue to ride with stiff elbows, dropped head, and scrunched shoulders. Until you change your riding technique by flexing your elbows downward and relaxing your arms, shoulders, and neck, and lifting through the top of your head, you will continue to experience discomfort. Look in Chapter 5 under “Your Neck and Shoulder” to learn how to retrain your body use and what stretching and strengthening exercises to practice to eliminate your discomfort.

Bicycling Bliss is based on the following concepts:

1. Discomfort on your bike is an indication that something is wrong and needs to be changed.

2. If you hurt during or after a ride, you will seek to understand the underlying causes of discomfort and make corrections rather than continuing to damage yourself.

3. Four factors contribute to riding comfort:

a. Your bicycle setup This requires that you have a bike frame that fits your body proportions and then modify the bike so your riding position enables you to relax and tune in to your body. The most common modification is to reposition your handlebars closer to your shoulders.
b. Biomechanically sound use of your body This requires that you understand how to use your body, heighten your awareness so you are conscious of habitual movements, and invest the time and energy to reshape your riding technique.
c. Balanced and symmetric muscle development Even with optimum riding technique, you will need to establish a daily strengthening and stretching routine to strengthen weak areas and to elongate chronically contracted muscles.
d. A modified life style that will support health and fitness excellence.

Cultivating Effective Practice

It takes courage to let go of the familiar. Rather than engaging yourself in an intellectual debate about change, just begin to experiment. Try something new and then observe what effect it has for you. Trust your experience. If you like the results, incorporate them into your style.

Avoid laboring over the pros and cons of a new technique. Just give it a whirl. Your mind and body will feel liberated by new thoughts and new movement patterns, and you will feel rejuvenated. Although experimentation is the characteristic learning pattern of children, you can enjoy it at any age.

Active children possess the natural gift of responding to their bodies’ messages that tell them which muscles affect a particular skill. This is how they actively learn physical skills every day. On the other hand, as we move into adult life, daily pressures often cause us to ignore signs of fatigue and strain and we tend to push ourselves to exhaustion. Eventually this causes a limited ability to receive critical feedback about body needs as well as diminished body awareness and kinesthetic sense. In fact, it is common for adults learning a new physical skill to tense up or to exert all their muscles. As the exercise becomes more familiar, they respond to body feedback (or coaching) and release the muscles that are not helping with the new skill. With practice, everyone can learn to use only the muscles that contribute to improved performance.

Practice regularly and in a sustained manner. Riding several times a week will facilitate change more quickly than taking long rides on the weekend. Short frequent rides enable you to give full attention to your new form. You are more likely to be successful when you are fresh and relaxed. When you devote time and attention to your practice, you will experience the benefits more quickly, and the results will motivate you to continue. On the other hand, focusing on the anticipated end results will probably cause the benefits to elude you. If you put your energy into the process of each technique, you will enjoy results sooner.

The quality of your practice is critical. No practice is better than wrong practice. Surely, you have had the experience of needing to relearn a skill after learning it incorrectly. It is tedious and requires patience and perseverance to overcome established habits. It will be worth your time to ensure that you are practicing the correct form. You might watch yourself in the large windows of buildings you ride past. If you have a video camera, ask someone to record your form so you can critique yourself.

Now let’s imagine that you are practicing a different use of your elbows while riding. You have always ridden with them rigid and hyper extended. You’ve just learned that you could gain better control of your bike and reduce hand and shoulder discomfort by flexing your elbows down toward your hips. With your hands on flat handlebars you bend your elbows. It feels like you are following the instructions but instead of dropping your elbows downward, you have bent them out to the side. Instead of being more comfortable, your deltoids are fatiguing while you ride, and you remain sore the next day. Getting accurate feedback from a video, mirror, or friend will help you avoid setbacks by ensuring that you are working toward the right goal from the start.

Letting go of Cherished Assumptions about Cycling

I ask you to sensitively search your assumptions about cycling for ideas that diminish your riding pleasure and the benefits you derive as you read Bicycling Bliss. You may be able to identify these assumptions in beliefs you hold about your skills, in your cycling goals, or in your understanding of riding technique and equipment choices.

Listen to how you characterize your riding skills in casual comments to friends. You might say, “I have lousy balance.” “I can’t get used to toe clips.” “I have poor stamina.” The more often you repeat these limiting statements, the more ingrained they become in your subconscious, and the more difficult they are to overcome. Try rephrasing these statements as working challenges. For example, “I am improving my balance.” “I’m setting myself up for success in learning to use toe clips.” “I’m building my stamina.”

Too frequently we criticize ourselves when we fall short of our own expectations. Be sure your expectations are appropriate. When recently learning to use a new computer program, I became frustrated every time I got stuck and was unable to make it do what I wanted. I concluded that I was computer challenged. A friend who had experience using this program offered to work with me. To my surprise and relief, she had to try several times to create the desired effects and was frequently annoyed. It turned out this program is not easy to use, and I needed hands-on instruction and patience. When you find yourself in a similar position, talk to other cyclists and look up your concern in the index of Bicycling Bliss to determine if your expectations are appropriate for your experience level to learn how to go beyond your frustration.

There are always other riders who are more accomplished than you, regardless of your skill level. Be sure your riding goals are appropriate for your experience and stamina levels. Avoid aspiring to goals shared by friends or promoted in the media that are destined to end in personal disappointment and even disenchantment with cycling altogether. Four months after Marilyn bought a new bike, she said cycling wasn’t for her because she could not easily ride the hills between home and town. I assured her that the one block-long 12 percent grade and steady climb on the way home were demanding, and that she should choose another route while she developed her riding technique and built up her cycling muscles and aerobic stamina. When I reminded her that she should have her gear indicators in one on both shifters when the going got tough, she revealed that she tried to stay in her middle chainring all the time. Her misconception of gear use destined her to a miserable riding experience. Rather than informing herself about riding technique, she assumed misery was a part of cycling and wanted to quit.

Clinging too tenaciously to riding styles or equipment can also sabotage your pleasure in cycling and your desire to continue. Claudia owns an expensive Italian bike with Campagnolo components. It has drop handlebars and two chainrings. She suffers continually from neck pain but rides 30 miles a day anyway. She knows that a more upright riding position and easier gearing would relieve her discomfort but she is too attached to the classic appearance of her bike to make appropriate modifications. A willingness to change would help her avoid permanent damage and provide a pain-free riding style.

I encourage you to honestly and willingly examine your riding satisfaction. What types of rides cause you discomfort or dissatisfaction? If you already are aware of some inadequacies, start seeking solutions there. Or are there skills you are already working on that you would like help refining?

In the pages that follow, I hope you will find encouragement and guidance in improving your riding technique and your equipment choices to help you find bicycling bliss.

Bicycle Bliss Emerged Out of My Search for Solutions to Riding Challenges

My early riding experiences were probably typical of most kids. I began riding to be part of the neighborhood fun. I knocked around in my street with my buddies, jumped dirt hills in the vacant lots, and rode to friends’ homes to play. My bike was fun and gave me independence and the sense that I was capable of creating my own adventures. In junior high, my bike became my main transportation. Although my friends were not riding in the fifties and sixties, I continued to get around by bike and loved the intimacy with nature and the sense of discovery it provided. When I married and became a mother, my sons rode in my Gerry carrier and child seat until they became able riders themselves. We lived in Tucson, Arizona, where the flat terrain and dry, warm desert climate was an ideal environment for developing family riding skills.

In 1977, we moved to Golden, Colorado, where my first friends were employees at the local bike store. When the store closed in 1980, one of the mechanics started searching for another job in Golden. Seven friends pooled their resources to open a new bike store and provide work for Karl. As part owner of Self-Propulsion, Inc., I also became the business manager. Business partnerships can be very trying, so after eighteen months I became the sole owner, the chief mechanic-in-training, and a single mom. This rapid transformation taught me to embrace challenges and to realize that the intense learning required by dramatic changes can be exhilarating.

What an eye-opener! I had ridden for thirty years on the same old 3-speed, carried my stuff haphazardly on my handlebars, and worn whatever was appropriate for my destination. Suddenly my eyes were opened wide to the advantages of quality bikes, appropriate accessories, and cycling specific clothing. With the support of employees, friends, and my neighbor bicycle retailers, I developed my skills as a mechanic. I soon recognized the great need for better riding conditions and became active in bicycle and pedestrian advocacy. I was a founding member of the Colorado Bicycling Advisory Board and co-authored the first Colorado state bicycling manual. In the mid-eighties when mountain biking began, I helped build acceptance of mountain bikes on Jefferson County Open Space trails. Work in the community was rewarding but the most satisfaction came from day-to-day interaction with cyclists in the store and seeking solutions for their needs. Although my personal riding style had focused on transportation, at Self-Propulsion I learned to appreciate the wide variety of rider styles and needs, everything from racers to the “every-third-Sunday” riders.

Striving to meet the equipment and health challenges presented by Self-Propulsion’s customers led to my disenchantment with the state of the bicycle industry and its preoccupation with high-end equipment and extreme riding styles. In hopes that I might understand these forces, which still limit the satisfaction of most riders, I became active in the industry. In an effort to promote change, I became a board member and eventual president of the National Bicycle Dealers Association. The years of my tenure, from 1988 to 1995, provided great personal opportunities. I worked with leaders in the industry and made presentations at regional bicycle conferences in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ontario, and Indiana. Each of these events enabled me to attend seminars and meet experts in cycling, urban planning, and advocacy. They strengthened my abilities as a spokesperson for healthy communities and rider and pedestrian interests. However, my broadening perspective of cycling only intensified my dissatisfaction with the cycling establishment. I therefore withdrew from my work in the bicycle industry to devote my full attention to the needs of my customers and my community. For more details of my family cycling adventures and in-store testing, refer to Appendix A.

In 1996, I began writing a guide for Self-Propulsion customers to help them improve their riding technique. In my efforts to address riders’ needs, I learned a lot about common discomforts that limit and discourage cyclists. For each problem riders presented, I suggested changes in their bike setups and riding techniques. As an accomplished bicycle mechanic, I was able to guide customers in their equipment choices. Our customers were (and continue to be) well-educated and committed cyclists who were willing to trust my advice, experiment with my suggestions, and report their experiences back to me. With each success and failure, my knowledge increased and gradually my confidence grew. Soon customers began to ask for more details. Was this information published so they could continue to improve their comfort and efficiency? When I told them that I didn’t know of a reliable resource to refer them to, they encouraged me to write one. Since I love to write, I began the project, starting out with earnest research. I searched the literature on cycling, anatomy, biomechanics, and general wellness to broaden my understanding. Fortunately, many of our customers are healthcare professionals and they were generous with their time and knowledge to answer my many questions. My employees shared their observations and insights, and we all tested new ideas on our own rides.

Over the last eight years, the simple origins of my writing have evolved into a full-fledged, thoroughly researched book. The concepts have been tested repeatedly. Traditional cycling solutions have been critically analyzed to sort out the wisdom from the myths. Whether you are a cyclist with years of experience or a novice, search the pages of Bicycling Bliss for concepts, exercises, and equipment suggestions to make your riding more enjoyable and to support a lifetime commitment to your health and fitness.

And above all, always remember: Bicycling is fun.